Our Front Living Room Mid-Process (+ Before/After Pics)

One thing you will quickly notice from any of our house pictures is that, first and foremost, an interior designer I am not. While I definitely love a beautifully designed space (and can appreciate it when others have the eye to do so), I seem to lack that particular oomph when it comes to knowing how to decorate, so I just do the best I can with my limited powers (and budget).

Hopefully I’ll get better as I go along.

However, one thing I can definitively say is that I for sure like how our front room currently looks much better than how it looked before:

While the people had it decorated to fit the colors and space before (and I’ll freely admit that their furniture grouping looked a lot better than ours), I personally am not a fan of vivid colors inside (at least not in such large quantities), so the red walls were the first thing to go (we actually tackled them even before we moved in!).

Note: There wasn’t actually any furniture in the home when we came to look at it for the first time; the only reason I know what it looked like before is because I saw this picture off of the house listing on Zillow:

Eventually I might reconfigure the space so the furniture layout actually looks a bit more like how they did it (because I think it’s better overall), but for now, we have to work with the furniture we have.

Here’s another before pic:

And how it currently stands:

As you can probably tell, we kept the off-white walls that were already there and simply painted the accent wall a light silver gray. I also got rid of the curtains (though I still need to take out the curtain rod thingies), and I think I’ll keep the windows open (aka, non-curtained) like that for now, possibly adding in a small natural wood trim at the top so it looks just a touch more finished.

One of my favorite pieces in the room right now is also one of the most newly acquired:

The funny thing is, this dresser was actually from one of the last storage sheds we bought. We had intended to sell it, but several family members told us that we’d be wanting a piece like that in our future home someday, so we decided to hang onto it and keep it in my in-laws’ garage.

Of course, it didn’t look nearly as beautiful as it does now.

I wish I had a better before picture, but I’m frankly lucky to have one at all. Here’s a glimpse of what it used to look like:

While I didn’t mind the color, the wood was noticeably scratched up and dinged the closer you stood to it, and the reddish wood didn’t match anything else we had, so my mom graciously agreed to refinish it for us. I seriously cannot believe how awesome it looks now.

I think she needs to go pro when it comes to refinishing furniture, eh?!

Although I like the space now a whole lot better than it was before, I’ll be the first to admit that it looks a little bit *too* neutral at the moment.

Here are some of my more immediate plans for changing up the space:

The biggest change I’m hoping to make over the next year or so is that I want to buy a new couch. Matt and I have never bought a new couch (we inherited this rather old one upon getting married), and I have the perfect navy couch in mind for this space.

In that picture above, you’ll also noticed I circled the plant—that’s because the plant in the picture is actually on loan from the kitchen: I haven’t bought the plant for the front room yet (though it’s on my to-do list for this month, so it should be happening soon).

A stupid change I have to make is that I should have never bought the frame above the piano in the first place. Sure, I was looking for something cheap, but this one is SO cheap that it’s almost impossible to ever see the picture without some sort of glare, and it literally is made of the same plastic that you put on the side of a bunch of papers to hook a cheap clear cover on top (if that makes sense).

I was able to get the other 3 poster frames for a steal from someone who lived here locally and who was only asking $15 for the trio (and they’re NICE frames, too), but I’m thinking I won’t get so lucky again, so I’ll probably be picking up this one from Amazon.

Also in the pic above, you’ll see that I circled the piano bench. My mom was telling me that it’s pretty easy to reupholster a bench like that (and I’ll have to take her word for it since anything crafty seems hard to me), so I’ll be doing that after we’ve bought the couch and have a better idea for the kind of color scheme we’ll have going on.

The other changes will just be to change out the decor on the piano once we actually have our final colors in place.

Finally, let’s just say that I struggle with the whole “vignette” thing, or whatever you call those cute collections found on tabletops and shelves.

I’ve always loved scouring antique shops and garage sales (or squirreling away particularly good pieces from the storage sheds we get at auction), but I need someone to train me how to be better at putting it all together.

For now, it will stay as it is until the couch is bought, at which point, much of the smaller decor will be changed out or added to.

And there you have it! Our front room as it currently is, in a nutshell (er, in a long blog post).

And if you have any suggestions on how I can become more Joanna Gaines-ish overnight, feel free to push me in the right direction via a comment or send ideas to my Pinterest. Please and thank you.

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Hi! I’m Torrie!

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